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Telegraph: London and Paris have refused to spend 0.25% of GDP on military aid to Kyiv

25 May 2026 01:44 (UTC +04:00)

The United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Canada, and France have rejected NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte's proposal that alliance countries spend 0.25% of their GDP on military support for Ukraine, APA reports citing The Sunday Telegraph.

According to the article, Rutte hoped that this proposal would be approved at the NATO summit in Ankara on July 7-8. A source told the publication that seven countries that already provide Kyiv with military aid in this amount supported the idea. The newspaper notes that the Netherlands, Poland, and the Scandinavian and Baltic countries each spend 0.25% of their GDP on supporting the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

However, such a proposal failed to gain the universal support required for NATO decision-making. "They weren't very enthusiastic about the idea," the newspaper's source said, citing the positions of London, Madrid, Rome, Ottawa, and Paris.

The Sunday Telegraph notes that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has stated his willingness to continue sending £3 billion ($4 billion) in arms to Kyiv annually "for the foreseeable future." However, this represents only 0.1% of the UK's GDP.